Online Poker Tournament Basics

Online Poker Tournament Basics

by Mario Alfonsi | Published on May 23, 2017 | Updated on May 23, 2017

When a player begins thinking about joining in on all of the excitement of online poker tournaments they want to understand as much as possible about tournament poker and how it works. There are some things a player new to the game should keep in mind so they know they are starting off on the right foot.

In all honesty, it’s pretty simple. In fact, if you don’t feel like reading this article, let me give you a bit of advice. Go right now, and as much cash as you can afford to start a bankroll with at 888 poker. Click here, for the best deposit bonus. The deposit bonus will double you up right off the bat, but you’ll have to clear the bonus by playing lots of poker hands before you actually get it, anyway, we’ll go into that deeper in the article. Once you get 888 downloaded, do this:

Sign up for a $20 poker tournament, then fold every single hand you get except for AA, KK, QQ, and AK (if they’re the same suit, so both spades or both hearts, etc.).

When you get one of those hands, bet as much as you think you can get someone to call. If you think you can get someone to go all in with you do that. Try that it gets many people to many final tables.

We’re going to get a lot deeper into online tournaments, but I do understand that we don’t all have the longest attention spans, and that bit of information will get you in the money more often than not.

If you’re still here, you’re going to do very well in this game, you have the patience not only to make money in tournaments, but to have a very long and lucrative career playing poker, as it is indeed a game of patience.

A quick Introduction to Online Poker Tournaments

Online poker tournaments come in many types, if you’re new to the game, you’re likely looking for a no limit tournament. Be leery of tournaments with the words Turbo, or Knockout, or Rebuy in the title. These aren’t your average poker tournaments

Best Tournaments for Beginners

The best tournament choices for beginning poker players are usually called something like double stack, super stack, or deep stack tournament events. That means that players are given lots of chips. The blinds also generally go up slower. So if you have the patience to wait for strong hands, like the hands I mentioned above in the ADHD section of this article, this is going to be a great game for you. You’re primarily looking for tournament events that start with 3k in tournament chips or more, I personally would like to see 5k to 10k in deep stack tournament I wanted to play in.

Knockout Tournaments

Once you get the hang of Deep-Stack events, and are ready to try something a touch different, but still much the same, knockout tournaments, also known as bounty events are really a lot of fun.

In this tournament, there’s the main prize pool like there always is in a tournament event and then there are bounties on everyone’s head. So the goal here isn’t just to win, it’s to knock out as many other players as you possibly can on your way to the final table. Doesn’t that just sound lusciously violent?

A couple of things happen here. One, players take a lot more shots at each other, because that want that bounty, so the tournament progresses along nicely, and the strong players do a lot more advancing toward the final table without even having to get involved in many pots.

Furthermore, players are more apt to make direct hit bets on the river, for all of each others then value betting and leaving their opponents alive when they have the best possible hand, known in poker as the nuts.

Cashout Tournaments

Cashout tournaments are played just like any other tournament, except that a player can cash out any or all of their chips at any point in the tournament. So let’s say you just want to ensure that you make your money back, when you have enough chips to sell back into the game, you can cash out for your buyin, and continue to play in the tournament with the chips you have left. If you amass a bunchmore chips, but aren’t sure of your ability to win the event, you can cash out again and again. There may be limitations on the % of chips that can be cashed out, some events for instance require that players leave 50% of their chips in the game for the final prize pool.

Shootout Tournaments

This sort of tournament is like a series of sit n go tournaments. Every single table plays until all but one player is knocked out at the table, and then either all of those players win, or in the case of a double shootout, the players are all reseated at new tables, and the process begins again. In some shootout events, this is done until there is just one table of players remaining.

Rebuy Poker Tournaments

Rebuy poker tournaments can be the most fun, and the most crazy sort of online poker tournaments available. When you get knocked out of a rebuy tournament, or sometimes even when you’ve become shortstacked, you can buy back in again, usually for a predetermined length of time. During the first stages of these games online, several players will generally push all in over and over again with just about any two cards, this is a strategy that the players use to amass a large stack before the rebuy period ends. The idea is that they will have to get lucky eventually, and then they’ll have a big stack to carry them through.

These players are often willing to rebuy 10-20 times for a shot at first place placement in the end of the game.

Whichever poker tournament style you choose to participate in you want to be comfortable with the game you choose to play. Some players take a lot of time to play in the regular online games in order to improve their skill and knowledge of the game before they play in the tournaments which have the larger buy ins, and if you’re afraid of losing, that might be a good plan for you as well.

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